Fabrizio Cotognini, con gli occhi di Paolo, 2012, pencil, biacca, pen on japanese paper mounted on wood, 100 cm x  280 cm, courtesy Anna and Giorgio Fasol Collection,Verona

Born from a reflection that brings together the archaic and the present, Con gli occhi di Paolo (2012) outlines a metaphorical displacement in times and places distant from each other to create a visionary short circuit aimed to build new thoughts, new forms of criticism of the planetary system.

The desire to constitute the presence of the past in contemporary gestures comes from reading the Saint Paul of Pier Paolo Pasolini (1968-1977). In the middle of the speech, there is in fact, the figure of Paul, because "Paul demolished revolutionary, with the simple force of his religious message, a type of society based on class violence, imperialism and above all slavery [... ]. "

And starting right from the sleep of Paolo described by Paolini, by a feverish dream in which appears a young German, Con gli occhi di Paolo interweaves different stories, creates analogies, proposes oblique perspectives in relation to events.

The young German who appears in a dream to Paolo Pasolini is represented in the script, in this case, the figure of Erwin Rommel, the Desert Fox who, the same way as St. Paul, he first served the power and then abandon it and lay a trap from inside (Rommel is known, in fact, for plotting the death of Hitler). In addition to these cardinal characters are depicted in different environments, two human means of transportation, the horse and the tank, to highlight further affinity. The horse of Paul (to be the bearer of soul) is opposed to consonance, the Panzer tank Tiger 2 (a machine), symbol of the advance German war industry, progress and exploitation.

The biblical places (Rome and Jerusalem) will be replaced eventually by Pasolinian places (New York in the first place) to move the theater of facts from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic, from the cradle of the culture to the cradle of the war industry today.

Even through the choice of materials and techniques Con gli occhi di Paolo form a tangle between different climates. The four panels entirely made of parchment paper and Japanese paper, indicate, in fact, symbolic perspectives of an instrumental nature. Interventions in pencil and ink reveal the past, while prints made with oil mark, on the other hand, the conditions of exploitation to which is subjected the contemporary world, the conditions of a power that has lost the future horizon and destroys all labile hope.